Podcast:

Is Trading Forex The Same As Gambling

In this weekly video:

00:21 – Forex trading and gambling

00:53 – The blame game – it’s very easy to do

01:59 – Trading is definitely not gambling

02:45 – You must understand risk and probability in order to trade well

05:04 – I’ve been trading for 14 years but it takes time

05:50 – Trading FX is one of the best things you can do

Is trading Forex gambling? Let's talk about that and more right now.

Hi Forex traders, Andrew Mitchem here, The Forex Trading Coach, video and podcast number 239.

Forex trading and gambling

I want to talk about Forex trading and gambling. Are they the same thing? Well, I certainly don't think they are, but I've had a comment today. It's been on YouTube. A guy said, "Andrew, what you're doing is you're gambling. Trading's not real. It's a terrible thing to do. You're just a gambler."

Well, a number of answers to that really. Thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people around the world make their living from trading Forex, but there's more to it than just that.

The blame game – it’s very easy to do

You see, the problem is today, it's very easy to blame other people. Social media means that people can moan and groan and vent their anger and frustration very, very easily. You generally find that the people that are doing well and busy in life, and entrepreneurs, et cetera, they don't bother with this whinging and moaning and typing stuff everywhere, because they're too busy enjoying life and doing things and making money, and spending time with their family to worry about doing all this criticism stuff.

As a trader, it's very, very easy if things go wrong to blame everybody else, to blame the broker, to blame the platform, to blame the robot that you've bought, to blame all these different things, to blame the indicator, to blame your strategy, to blame your coach, whatever it might be. It's very, very easy to blame other people. Or in fact, for most people, the real reason that they don't do well is through lack of learning, lack of discipline, lack of focus, controlled risk, all those type of things.

Trading is definitely not gambling

For me personally, it is definitely not gambling. I am the most ungambling person, if that's a word, that I know. I have never betted on horses or dogs or anything like that. I've never bought a lotto ticket, ever. I've been to a casino probably three times in my entire life, and that's briefly. I'm not a casino person, I'm not a gambling person, and Forex trading is not gambling. You have to understand that if you want to become a trader, you have to have discipline, you have to understand the market, and you have to have focus. You have to have controlled risk. You have to understand probability, all these type of things.

You must understand risk and probability in order to trade well

So for me, as a trader, I understand risk. I never, ever risk more than half of 1% of my account per trade. Never. Most of the time it's a quarter of a percent, a quarter to a half percent. Very, very low, controlled risk. I understand probability, I understand price action, I understand patterns, I understand strength and weakness, I understand where price might bounce, round numbers, support and resistance levels, previous highs, previous lows, pivot points. I understand what happens when we have divergence, when you have the price going one way and an indicator heading the other way.

I understand I've bought oversold situations, I read the news, I'm not a news trader, but I have a look at what's happening in the news, the fundamentals. Any big news events. I trade longer timeframe charts where they have more probability, they have more information contained within a c...